January 7th, 2009
A New Year, A New Beginning
Yes it’s cliché, but in this case, there is no other way to say it.
We all have something new that we vow to do for the new year. For some it’s to exercise more. Others may decide to start flossing. I decided it was time to leave my job of four years at an ad agency to freelance full time.
It may seem like a crazy decision. The economy isn’t doing so great and people are being laid off. But I felt that I needed to spread my wings a little bit. Freelancing is a challenge, but I feel up to it. I’ve got some new tools under my belt and some exciting projects coming up. And there’s nothing like working from home. This has been a dream of mine for a while, and I’m confident that I can make it work.
If you’ve been here before, you may have noticed that I’ve revamped the site, hopefully for the better. It started off as an experiment, inspired by Jason Santa Maria, who is promoting the idea of treating dynamic web content more like printed media. This is tough to do. Designing for the web has its own set of challenges that make this a lot harder than it sounds. I had a lot of other ideas that I’ve had to scrap for technical reasons and time constraints, and I may gradually add some of them. But I had to say enough was enough, and go ahead with the launch.
You might be wondering why this is necessary. The truth is that print, especially magazines and newspapers, are in the middle of a mass migration to the web. This is being accelerated by the current economy. So the challenge for us designers is to learn how to make this transition, and make it a good one.
Like I said, this site is a bit of an experiment. I’ve used some techniques that I’ve never used before, and it may not display correctly in Internet Explorer. I haven’t had a chance to test it yet. But the techniques and framework that I’ve implemented should allow me to create posts and pages that aren’t stuck in the traditional ‘post in left column, static links in right column’ layout. I can be a little more creative with the layout of my posts. So we’ll see where this goes.
January 7th, 2009
The new site looks awesome! So fresh and so clean clean. I like the multiple columns for text, and how each post’s graphic elements are not in the same place every time. This type of design intentionality makes me feel, after only a glance, that each post has something different to offer and encourages me to keep reading. Traditionally formatted blogs may have a variety of useful or entertaining information, but all the posts run together in a dreadful never ending monotone lecture. Good for Jason Santa Maria. Good for you. Good for the new year. I look forward to working with you on Soapbox’s first project in 2009!
January 15th, 2009
I LOVE YOUR WEBSITE!!! I especcially LOVE THE LOGO! Great job!
February 2nd, 2009
Looking good, man. Really inspired new design.
You don’t know me, but I’m a friend of Cody Lowry’s and apparently used to live right around the corner from you in Brumby –– that is before we moved off to Washington state last year. Cody was the one who told me about your site over the Christmas break — just before you updated it again.
Anyway, just wanted to say it looks really terrific… be on the look out for the copy-cats!